Who is not using some kind of analytics today. I was tweeting earlier that I had 4 press releases today talking about their second to none, outstanding, cost effective and cost effective solutions. They all sound the same to me anymore, and maybe that’s because a few years back I used to write that kind of stuff, so all in nature and what they do are very similar. Pharma reps will now be able to be equipped with that stats that they need to drive home how many patients are suffering from the conditions that the drug they are selling will fix or treat. I might have to change the name of this blog soon to correspond with the news that comes out to the Analytical Quack:)

Boy I really do have to say that so many press releases anymore are such “cookie cutters” and those 5 or 6 templates used really make the round today. The company with the software slates themselves as the leading provider of “sales enablement solutions”…wait a minute you mean you can sell unless you have software that can “enable” you <grin>. I also spent 25 years in sales with Fortune 500 companies so a little bit of my sarcasm here as I remember well how the big corporate machines work very well, one area down in revenue, it gets a focus, you sell deals and benefits (used to be pens and lunches) and somehow in a coupe months that area of the company is back on line. Pfizer has been tablet friendly with their reps for years and has a ton of resources and services already used by their employees to include SharePoint for all and so now they have one more tool to “enable” sales. BD

Callidus Software Inc. (NASDAQ: CALD), the leader in Sales Performance Management (SPM), announced today that Pfizer Inc, the world's largest research-based biopharmaceutical company, has selected the iCentera Sales Enablement SaaS platform to drive the effectiveness of its sales team in the U.S., including internal sales, contract sales, and channel partners. The agreement was signed in the third quarter of 2011.

Dark Arts of Mathemical Deception

Professor Charlie Siefe of NYU, a mathematician debunks clinical trials, and few other items to where data is spun and fools you, every day example, hear about the perfect butt algorithm and more. These are probably some things you have never thought about but again after listening to what he has to say, it’s time to think about being skeptical. Here’s a radio show that also talks about the same topics.

This video digs in a bit further with how fictitious business models are used by banks and companies do this too. The models are so complex that CEOs don’t even understand them. “Quants, The Alchemists of Wall Street will take you through how “math models” work at banks and financial institutions in a way that even the layman can understand. More videos like over at theAlgo Duping/Killer Algorithm Page. Bank of America will also tell you“IT’ is a business” how they make money.

Weapons of Math Destruction

This is a lecture where Kathy O’Neill, a former Quant who worked for a Hedge Fund (Weapons of Math Destruction) on Wall Street will tell you what is done with your retirement money and more. The banks and companies use technology to take advantage because they can. “Of course we are going to take advantage because our tools are our brains…if they could figure out a way to take advantage of pension funds they would, a good interview with explaining smart money and dumb money.

Algorithms Shape The World

This is a very good presentation done a TED Conference and really was the one that got everyone started thinking about algorithms and today it’s talked about a lot. As he says “if you’re an algorithm, life is looking pretty good, but can’t say the same for humans”. What is a black box? Nobody has any control over the flash crash. We have moved forward a bit but still we are writing the unreadable and lost the sense of some of what is happening. Nice plug for Nanex here with research.